Forgot your password?
A Decade of Fair Trade
The Americus-based specialty coffee roaster and co-founder of Cooperative Coffee celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Before toasting to our dearly beloved member and "founding father," let's retrace a bit of the history and mission behind this trail-blazing roastery and recently inaugurated coffee shop!
The idea of creating a Fair Trade coffee roasting company developed after founder Bill Harris returned from a visit to a newly formed coffee-farming cooperative in Guatemala in 1997. While the concept of Fair Trade was far from the mainstream vocabulary of the time, Bill was immediately concerned with the volatility of the conventional coffee market and its effects on the families who depended on it for their main source of income. Without having to research much further in detail, Bill came to the conclusion that coffee farmers all over the world were being horribly exploited and deserved some kind of alternative. The price assigned to coffee by the New York Commodity Exchange failed to take into consideration the economic burden or reality of the individual coffee farmers.
Disturbed by the insensitivity of the coffee market and determined to come up with an alternative, Bill put his words into action and 1998 Café Campesino became one of the first Fair Trade organic green bean coffee roaster in the United States. This new micro-roastery’s mission and goal was – and is – to establish long-term relationships with farmer cooperatives in the process of buying and importing their green coffee beans and paying them a fair wage. Café Campesino would then sell the coffee beans to roasters in the U.S. who cared about the people involved in the production.
The supply of coffee importation started the following year, after contracts were established with various coffee-growing cooperatives in Mexico and Guatemala. Café Campesino’s owners reinforced and furthered their commitment to Fair Trade coffee by proposing the creation of a centralized office in Americus that would serve as the contact for other coffee roasters interested in buying Fair Trade coffee beans. In 2000, Cooperative Coffees was founded with a vision similar to that of Café Campesino – to assist coffee farmers by creating direct markets for their products in the U.S. and Canada, while ensuring that they receive a fair price for their work – but with the support and collaboration of six other roaster members.
After ten strong years of selling coffee and engaging in various projects all over the coffee-growing world, Café Campesino is continually looking for ways to improve its relationships with the producers and to educate its clientele about the world of Fair Trade. On August 16th, 2008, Café Campesino’s will celebrate the grand opening of its new coffee shop! The shop is a great opportunity to expand Café Campesino’s ability to reach its neighbors in order to promote the Fair Trade coffee market. Located near the roastery, the shop’s customers will be able to enjoy a freshly brewed cup of coffee and check out the resource library while they make their usual stop to buy their beans.
Congratulations, and long live Café Campesino!
Read The Albany Herald's article on Café Campesino's anniversary.
